Monday, January 28, 2008

Hospitals and Jell-O

Beware of eating hospital food. I have witnessed first-hand the serving of green jell-O to all in-patients who were recovering on the fifth floor of the hospital. There was not a specific menu for each person. Everyone got green jell-O! Since when have doctors promoted sugar?

I have had a little box of jell-O in my cupboard for years. I was going to use it once to make a recipe that I never made. I am looking at the ingredients and the nutrition facts, and it is worse than I could have guessed. The first ingredient is sugar, which is obvious, and then there is a list of ingredients that I can't pronounce (a really bad sign!), and then I counted 4 different food dyes. Under the nutrition facts there is no nutrition. Just a ton of sugar and some sodium. This is what Kaiser serves its patients. Ironically, in my neighborhood, there is a Kaiser billboard that shows a picture of fresh blueberries with the slogan, "Thrive." This deserves a letter to the board of directors at the hospital. Why would they promote fresh fruit while serving their patients jell-O?

Yesterday I called the San Diego hospital where my mom had been recovering for 8 days from surgery. Her recovery was estimated to be quicker than that, but she was not able to keep her jell-O down. I asked to speak to a dietitian. First, I spoke with a "nutrition clerk". I asked about the foods that the hospital was serving, and their nutritional value. I asked why my mom wasn't getting appropriate nutrition. I didn't get an answer but was told the dietitian would call me. I got a voice mail from the dietitian soon after my phone call. She didn't answer my questions, but she did call me back. Two hours after I called the hospital, my mom was discharged from the hospital.

3 comments:

Hi,I stumbled across your blog and am working through reading it from the beginning. My husband was at Sharp in SD last year and I was also appalled at the jello and other nonhealthy crap they tried to serve him. I wrote a letter to the cafeteria manager/dietitian, but I'm sure they are still serving unhealthy food to their patients every day.I think it is some type of weird conspiracy that hospitals serve unhealthy white flour, white sugar type foods to their patients. The most we can do is be prepared! =)

I think this is related to some kind of thinking deeply ingrained in the psyche of our culture, perhaps having to do with comfort food? When I got sick as a kid, my mother would feed me jello, 7-up and saltines. Tons of sugar and salt and additives in all three, but to this day, these are the foods I turn to when I am feeling ill. It has been a few years since I really got sick, as I eat pretty healthy these days but still, the healthy foods just don't seem appealing to me when I am not feeling so hot.

Kate-Funny-My mom also gave me 7-up and saltines! I never liked the soda because I didn't (and still don't) like soda to begin with and I remember it being much too sweet to "drink".... Jell-O was just part of dinner occasionally. An interesting book I read recently is "The End of Overeating" which talks about comfort foods among other very interesting psychological reasons for our cravings and eating habits.